


Her Winter Passed

by Captain Natasha Riker-Troi (textsfrompicard)



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: F/M, Fear, Inspired by Novel, Introspection, Loss, Love Confessions, Missing Scene, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27113452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/textsfrompicard/pseuds/Captain%20Natasha%20Riker-Troi
Summary: Beverly reflects on her response (or lack thereof) to Jean-Luc’s confession of love for her, and comes to a decision.
Relationships: Beverly Crusher/Jean-Luc Picard
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24
Collections: Trektober 2020





	Her Winter Passed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [refusetoshine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/refusetoshine/gifts).



> Day 19 prompt: love confessions. This is meant to be a missing scene from the TNG novel Death in Winter.

Beverly was used to sleeping alone. She had done that often enough even before Jack passed away; but afterwards, it had become more of a rule than an exception. In the immediate aftermath, little Wesley had sometimes crawled into bed with her in the middle of the night, seeking a refuge from the loneliness he was not yet old enough to comprehend. In terms of lovers, there had been precious few of those; Odan, Ronin, John Doe (although he was never technically her lover, her relationship with the Zalkonian-turned-energy-being had been one of fondness and mutual respect), and Dr. Keith Hughes, one of her former residents at Starfleet Medical during her first tenure there fourteen years ago, with whom she had briefly reconnected during the Enterprise’s mission to Tezwa. The point was, for over four decades now, the vast majority of the time she spent in bed, she spent alone, and she had long since grown used to that fact.

_So why can’t I sleep?_

The question was rhetorical, of course. Beverly knew perfectly well why she couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t get Jean-Luc Picard out of her mind. Over and over again, she replayed in her mind the words he had spoken to her on Kevratas, words she had always suspected were true (and had known were true ever since that fateful night on Kesprytt), words he had never actually spoken aloud until that point: _I love you, Beverly. I have always loved you. And I always will._

How had she responded to this pure, unvarnished, God’s-simple-truth expression of affection? Had she responded in kind, fully embracing him at long last like her subconscious had longed to do for many years? Had she responded like she had done after Kesprytt, when she told him that they should be afraid of their feelings, and firmly shoved their relationship back into the platonic friendship they had developed and grown comfortable with during their years together on the Enterprise?

No, she hadn’t done either of those things. She had _ignored_ him, slipping out of his arms without a word and getting right back to the mission at hand, as if he hadn’t just confessed his undying love for her. During the entire trip back from Kevratas, she had pretended like nothing even happened, chatting animatedly with Pug Joseph and Carter Greyhorse like the old friends they were, but she kept her distance from Jean-Luc, both figuratively and literally. It was like she had shut down, unable to comprehend the sudden shift in their relationship.

But it wasn’t as if it was _news_ to her. She knew how Jean-Luc had always felt about her, but never had she dreamed he would have the nerve to bring it up so directly like that. There had been times over the course of the past year, ever since their encounter with the so-called demon ship, that it seemed as though something might happen between them. Ever since Yerbi Fandau had announced his retirement from being head of Starfleet Medical and offered her the position, she had deliberated whether or not to share that information with Jean-Luc. He would have already known about it anyway; as her commanding officer, Yerbi would have been obligated to inform him that he was extending the job offer to his CMO. But she had hesitated to bring it up with Jean-Luc directly, partly because she wasn’t sure if she wanted it, and partly out of fear that he wouldn’t ask her to stay, that he wouldn’t at long last tell her what he _had_ eventually told her on Kevratas. But when she finally told him she was planning to accept the job, he said nothing except to wish her the best, and so she’d left, but then he came to her rescue like a goddamn knight in shining armor and finally said the words she’d been longing to hear, after she’d already given up hope that he would ever say them.

_What is the matter with you?_ she asked herself angrily. _First you pushed him away on Kesprytt, then you left him altogether because you wanted him to make the first move even though he had no reason to suspect that your feelings might have changed, and then when he finally does make a move, you push him away again! What are you thinking?!_

For a moment, Beverly thought of contacting Deanna, but after a moment’s reflection decided against it. The Enterprise’s former counselor and her best friend was in the midst of her honeymoon with Will Riker and in all likelihood would rather not be disturbed, especially for a problem that Beverly could very easily solve herself, if she could just figure out what the hell it was she wanted.

Her history with Jean-Luc was… complicated, to say the least. When she’d first met him on the Stargazer many years ago, it had been as his best friend’s fiancée. Apparently, if Jean-Luc’s innermost thoughts could be trusted, he had loved her ever since that day, and never said a word, out of respect for his friend Jack. Then Jack had been killed after a fateful encounter with a spatial anomaly, and Jean-Luc had been the one to deliver the news and bring his body home. That was the last time Beverly had seen or spoken to Jean-Luc, until the day she reported for duty aboard the Enterprise-D. She had requested the assignment, although to this day she wasn’t entirely sure what had prompted her to zero in on his ship out of all the ones that had CMO positions available at the time. Perhaps she was merely surprised to see him back in command of a starship again after losing the Stargazer. Or perhaps it was something more. She’d never fully decided either way, and until Kevratas, had never been directly and explicitly faced with having to make a decision. Maybe that was why she had ignored Jean-Luc when he told her he loved her. Maybe she was afraid to answer, not because she didn’t return his feelings, but because she _did._

But could she embark upon a romantic relationship with him, after all they had endured? Did such an enterprise (no pun intended) have any chance of success? Even if he did forgive her for so callously rejecting him not once but twice, what would their journey together look like? How would it end?

Unbidden, a memory rose up out the fog of her subconscious mind; Jack’s pale, lifeless body lying prone on a postmortem examination table, partly covered by a white sheet, only his face and shoulders visible. Jean-Luc had walked side by side with her to see him, but he was now standing several paces behind her, in order to give her some modicum of privacy. Briefly, Jack’s face morphed into that of Jev, the Ullian historian who had hijacked this memory of hers eleven years earlier, and she angrily shoved the falsehood aside, using the techniques the Ullian physicians had taught her.

In that moment, confronted with the reality of her husband’s passing, she was keenly aware of the presence of Jean-Luc standing behind her, his breath sounding unnaturally loud in the cavernous silence of the morgue. Caught between her dead lover and her living friend, she had been in no position to consider Jean-Luc’s nascent feelings for her, had she even been fully aware of them at the time. 

But there was a reason she had taken very few lovers since Jack’s death. Maybe it was a habit she’d picked up, after losing so many people; first her parents, then Bobby Goldsmith, who had been her first childhood kiss (and coincidentally, a victim of the very same disease that she had been sent to Kevratas to cure); her husband; her grandmother and guardian; Tasha Yar and countless other crewmates over the years, whether it was to death or to transfer; even her son (although becoming a Traveler was a vast improvement over dying, she saw him so rarely he might as well be dead). For her, loss was the norm, not the exception. She’d grown accustomed to it, but she had never suspected that she might have grown _too_ accustomed to it. Too accustomed to being alone, because she knew perfectly well that as soon as she formed an attachment to someone, she would inevitably lose them. It was just a matter of time. So she threw herself into her work and hobbies and raising her son, relying even more on the former after the latter task was done, all to distract herself from the loneliness that she was afraid to quench with actual companionship. Her breakfasts with Jean-Luc were the closest she came to taking a break from it all, setting all the distractions aside and just _living_. But every time she had an opportunity to make something more of that time with him, she resisted, for reasons she had never been willing to face head-on, because it would have meant confronting a painful truth.

“So that’s it?” she said bitterly to her darkened bedchamber. “I’m alone… _because I’m afraid to be alone?!_ ”

No one answered. She was, after all, alone.

Well, not for long. With a determination she wished she had eight years ago after Kesprytt, she went to her computer terminal and within minutes completed both the tendering of her resignation from Starfleet Medical and her request for transfer. Specifically, transfer to the Enterprise-E, for the recently vacated post of Chief Medical Officer. She knew that Worf, as the first officer, would see the transfer request before Jean-Luc, so she added a special addendum for his eyes only. After all, it would only spoil the surprise if Jean-Luc knew in advance who his ‘new’ CMO was going to be.

Her task at last complete, she leaned back in her seat with a satisfied sigh and smiled. She’d been a fool, but at least she wouldn’t be lonely anymore. And neither would Jean-Luc. Their winter would soon be over. It was time for spring to arrive.


End file.
